Archive for “June, 2013”

I’m delighted to announce that Neiman Marcus is Social Media Group’s newest client partner. As part of our mandate, I’ll be working closely with their communications and marketing leadership to help this iconic retail brand focus their already impressive social and digital activities on delivering significant, measurable business value. A long-time fan of NM (and follower of their many robust social channels – these folks know how to make great, compelling content!) I’m thrilled to be working in partnership with them to accelerate their efforts.

I’m also very much looking forward to my upcoming visit to their spectacular flagship store in Dallas, Texas (purely for research purposes, of course).

I don’t care how distasteful you find it. Or, perhaps it’s not even modesty, but rather a feeling that giving that interview or speaking at that conference is not a good use of your time. You’re too busy. Whatever the reason, I’ll make this very clear: women who want to “change the ratio” but don’t self promote are letting all of us down.

I’m publishing this post (in which no names shall be named) in response to my recent experience on a writing project. I’m interviewing amazing founders and CEOs, talking to them about their businesses and how they got there. I am committed to ensuring that the voices that make up this story are diverse – I’d like to have a decent ratio of women to men (50/50 is probably ambitious, but I’ll try). Thanks to introductions from well-connected and helpful friends, I’ve interviewed some of the best-known names in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, and their stories have been amazing, compelling, and strikingly humble.

The problem? Most of them are men. Why? Because less than a third of the women I’ve approached have responded or agreed to be interviewed. All of the men have.

At this rate, I’ll have to approach three female tech CEOs for every single interview I’m able to book. I invite you to pity me in my attempts to “change the ratio” – something that now appears to be a mathematical impossibility.

So I’ll just say it: women who don’t self promote are letting us down. This isn’t going to happen by magic – this is your responsibility.

Now, of course I am using these dueling (and probably incomparable) stats to make a couple of smartass points, first: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics” and secondly (and most importantly; you really ought to know that first one by now): I believe there actually is a pretty big problem with how many organizations are using social media, and it’s making those channels perform poorly. Just as poorly as the interrupt-and-repeat approach brands and agencies are still so hooked on.